[Koralatov]

So, I’ve been thinking about upgrading my iMac G4 ahead of Leopard, just to get the absolute best performance out of it. As the machine is a total sod to get into and upgrade, I decided to let the professionals do it (I don't want to risk making my beloved iMac fubar).

In this line of thought, I did a quick store locator check on Apple’s site and found out, much to my surprise, Aberdeen actually does have an authorised Apple service centre. Hurray! I thought.

So, naïve as I am, I emailed CMYK Digital to get a quote for labour costs (note: labour costs only—the prices he quotes don’t include the actual cost of components). I got my original email back, annotated. (Emphasis mine.)

Hi,

I have an 20” iMac G4 with 768MB of RAM currently, and an 80GB hard-disk. I was wondering if you could give me a quote on the labour cost for you to carry out the following upgrades:

Replacing the hard-disk with a new, larger one;
£87.99 + VAT

Cloning the original HD onto the new machine;
£180.00 + VAT

Installing a 1GB PC2700 DIMM in the engineer-only slot inside the machine;
£68.75 + VAT

Cleaning the insides to remove any dust, etc., that have doubtlessly gathered in there.
No cost

Luckily, he was very generous and decided to clean the crap out of the insides for free. Wow, what a guy. Only problem is, just for labour, I’d end up spending £365.67. Throw in the components and you’re probably talking about a hundred or more on top of that.

I was absolutely horrified. I phoned up MacUpgrades.co.uk to see how much they’d charge for a similar service, and their grand total including parts—250GB hard-disk and the 1GB DIMM—as well shipping it there and back: £241.94.

Granted, to send it down there I have to box it up and arrange pick-up (they do door-to-door through CitiLink), but it’s a minor irritation that I’d gladly undergo to save two-hundred quid.

So, my question is: are all official Apple service providers total rip-off merchants, or did I just get really, really unlucky?

[JonoMarshall]

Does the cost factor in guarantees on the work they plan to do, etc? I guess they shout the bill for a new iMac if they mess it up? It does seem really expensive, but that's probably because I'm only thinking in terms of an hourly rate. Cloning the original HD @ 180.00?!!? I'd do that little job for a fiver, it's not exactly rocket science is it?!

(I'd do the work yourself, as long as you really take your time and do some thorough research first it aint that tricky.)

[PEPPERRULES]

Originally Posted by Koralatov 

So, I’ve been thinking about upgrading my iMac G4 ahead of Leopard, just to get the absolute best performance out of it. As the machine is a total sod to get into and upgrade, I decided to let the professionals do it (I don't want to risk making my beloved iMac fubar).

In this line of thought, I did a quick store locator check on Apple’s site and found out, much to my surprise, Aberdeen actually does have an authorised Apple service centre. Hurray! I thought.

So, naïve as I am, I emailed CMYK Digital to get a quote for labour costs (note: labour costs only—the prices he quotes don’t include the actual cost of components). I got my original email back, annotated. (Emphasis mine.)



Luckily, he was very generous and decided to clean the crap out of the insides for free. Wow, what a guy. Only problem is, just for labour, I’d end up spending £365.67. Throw in the components and you’re probably talking about a hundred or more on top of that.

I was absolutely horrified. I phoned up MacUpgrades.co.uk to see how much they’d charge for a similar service, and their grand total including parts—250GB hard-disk and the 1GB DIMM—as well shipping it there and back: £241.94.

Granted, to send it down there I have to box it up and arrange pick-up (they do door-to-door through CitiLink), but it’s a minor irritation that I’d gladly undergo to save two-hundred quid.

So, my question is: are all official Apple service providers total rip-off merchants, or did I just get really, really unlucky?

In North America, the upgrade prices vary widely, especially the labour costs. The best bet is to get several quotes in advance.

[0157988944]

Anything related to Mac = overpriced.

it's the sad truth.

[Sherman Homan]

I gotta say, that simply cloning an existing drive onto a new drive might just clone all of the existing problems too. So a professional is going to spend time hosing out cache files, running updates and testing the thing so that the machine runs well. That takes time. Some people design beautiful art, some people can swap hard drives in a G4 iMac. If the end result is a really well functioning machine for someone, then it is money well spent.

[iREZ]

why not save the money that it takes to clone your old drive and just buy an external drive...pop your old one in it and clone it yourself..really easy to do (especially with tiger or leopard) and probably cheaper.

[firefly]

Originally Posted by iREZ 

why not save the money that it takes to clone your old drive and just buy an external drive...pop your old one in it and clone it yourself..really easy to do (especially with tiger or leopard) and probably cheaper.

I agree. A decent firewire enclosure would cost around £30. And then you have an external drive you can use for backing up, etc.

[KisforKennedy]

Just do it yourself. Lampshade iMacs are not very complicated machines.

[Eriamjh]

Originally Posted by KisforKennedy 

Just do it yourself. Lampshade iMacs are not very complicated machines.

Ditto from me. Don't be a chicken. It is not that hard. Just make sure you have some thermal compound handy for reassembly. There's a great take-apart guide on XLR8YourMac.com here.

[Koralatov]

Originally Posted by Sherman Homan 

I gotta say, that simply cloning an existing drive onto a new drive might just clone all of the existing problems too. So a professional is going to spend time hosing out cache files, running updates and testing the thing so that the machine runs well. That takes time. Some people design beautiful art, some people can swap hard drives in a G4 iMac. If the end result is a really well functioning machine for someone, then it is money well spent.

I think my iMac is in pretty good shape; the install of Tiger it has is less than three months old, and I take the time to run maintenance about once a week with OnyX. It’s a hold-over from my PC days, when just keeping the bloody thing running meant running virus, spyware and malware scans, as well as registry clean-ups about once a fortnight. Compared to that, the Mac is a dream, and no trouble at all.

However, your point does stand. Though, to be honest, I still don’t think it’s worth £180. It’s not like he’s picking all the undesirable bits of data out with a pair of tweezers…

Originally Posted by Eriamjh 

Just make sure you have some thermal compound handy for reassembly. There's a great take-apart guide on XLR8YourMac.com here.

The more I read, the more tempted I am to carry out the procedure myself, but at the same time, I am still hesitant. If they screw my machine, they’d be obliged to repair/replace it. If I screwed it up, I’d have to foot the bill, and I don’t think I’d be able to get another G4 for what I paid for this one.

I will, however, give it some serious thought—carrying it out myself may just be the answer. There is one thing that I’m still not sure of: what kind of memory do I fit in the engineer slot? I know it’s different from the RAM in the user slot, but I’m still not sure exactly what kind it is.

I’ll save up and buy everything at once, because I don’t think I’ve got the courage to do it twice if I did persuade myself to upgrade it.

[ghporter]

Your priced out list of tasks is probably not an indication of what YOUR computer needs. More likely it's from a fee schedule that is based on bad situations caused by bad users. In other words, a fee schedule has to take into account the worst case and how often that worst case presents itself. I have done a lot of commercial, retail-level electronics work, and while an hourly bench rate is a better way to recoup one's costs, a flat fee is usually much better from the customer's point of view because he knows what's coming-even if he did spill a large glass of wine into the hardware while it was on.

Also, the firm that does the work has to stand behind it, and there is no way for a tech to be able to guarantee that all possible issues have been covered on absolutely every customer's jobs, so the fees get a little bumped up to buffer the firm against potential rework situations. Think of that as insurance for both you and the company doing the work.

[bearcatrp]

Not sure what applications you use but would suggest you keep the imac the way it is and buy a refurb mini (intel). The mini will smoke that G4 (using native applications). Also, alot easier to upgrade the memory and hard drive in it too. Use the imac for web surfing or ppc applications you use. If your a gamer, then disreguard my suggestion as the mini uses shared video memory.
Randy

[mBurns]

Originally Posted by bearcatrp 

Not sure what applications you use but would suggest you keep the imac the way it is and buy a refurb mini (intel). The mini will smoke that G4 (using native applications). Also, alot easier to upgrade the memory and hard drive in it too. Use the imac for web surfing or ppc applications you use. If your a gamer, then disreguard my suggestion as the mini uses shared video memory.
Randy

I think the OP prefers the design of the G4 iMac -- it's classy and classic. Plus, with a mini, you end up needing to buy a monitor (if you don't already have one) which, if I recall, jacks the price up close to a base iMac.

[Koralatov]

Originally Posted by mBurns 

I think the OP prefers the design of the G4 iMac -- it's classy and classic. Plus, with a mini, you end up needing to buy a monitor (if you don't already have one) which, if I recall, jacks the price up close to a base iMac.

Absolutely on the money, mBurns. The G4 is beautiful, and has an incredible 20" widescreen on it. It is, without doubt, one of the most attractive computers ever made. I have a 17" Dell monitor, but it's 4:3, and nowhere near as good as the iMac's. Thus, buying a Mac mini is somewhat pointless, as a big part of the reason I bought the iMac in the first place was its incredible screen.

Another idea occurs to me: I could get a break-down of MacUpgrades' costs and see if CMYK would be willing to match it. I doubt it, but I can live in hope...

[Eriamjh]

The iMac G4 uses desktop PC2700 memory in the inside slot (or maybe PC2100, but PC2700 will work for sure).
The outside slot is the same, but just an SO-DIMM (notebook) slot.

The upgrade is pretty easy. You just have to go slow and pay attention to everything. Take pics if you have to. Study the procedure before starting. Keep track of all the screws. Take notes.

Remember that idiots build these machines. Sometimes an idiot services it. You, however, can be careful and cautious and perform a proper surgery with positive results and little extra cost (outside of the components). Be patient and take your time and you will be successful.

[Koralatov]

Originally Posted by Eriamjh 

The iMac G4 uses desktop PC2700 memory in the inside slot (or maybe PC2100, but PC2700 will work for sure).
The outside slot is the same, but just an SO-DIMM (notebook) slot.

The upgrade is pretty easy. You just have to go slow and pay attention to everything. Take pics if you have to. Study the procedure before starting. Keep track of all the screws. Take notes.

Remember that idiots build these machines. Sometimes an idiot services it. You, however, can be careful and cautious and perform a proper surgery with positive results and little extra cost (outside of the components). Be patient and take your time and you will be successful.

Thanks for the advice. I've decided just to go ahead and do it myself, once I've saved up and bought the components. I'm thinking about waiting for Leopard, so I can install it straight onto the new hard-disk, and then copy any files I may have across.

I do have a request: does anyone have a copy of the service manual for this model? I'd really like to have a read of it before I go ahead and do this because I'm not too keen on the guide linked to above (and it's the only one I could find after googling).

[JKT]

APPLE MANUALS

You might find the one you want there (e.g. iMac (Flat Panel) is the one you want, I believe)

[ChasingApple]

PC 2700 DDR 333mhz memory (full size 184-pin desktop stick) in the engineering slot. 200-pin same speed in the user slot. It is TOO easy to get into and install the engineer slot memory. I have been inside mine many times and once you do it you will never worry again. You need the special screw-driver to get in and some thermal compound for the 2 posts inside for re-assembly. Dont pay those bloked a dime, just DOOWIT!